LITMIR.BIZ

      Color Weaver

      Connie Hall

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      MILLS & BOON

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      Sheriff Reese McMurray didn’t believe in the supernatural—until his father went missing twelve years go. Evidence indicated that Summer White-Cloud, Reese’s high school sweetheart, had somehow conjured the wendigo responsible for his death…so Reese deserted her.

      Now the pattern of disappearances have returned, forcing Reese to work with Summer to stop the evil threatening their community. Even Reese can’t deny there is still a sizzling chemistry between them. But will their rekindled passion survive when Summer reveals her real connection to the wendigo?

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter 1

      Summer White-Cloud came out of her daze, hand trembling, poised above her sketch pad. When she looked at what she’d drawn, she gasped and turned away.

      She couldn’t have drawn that.

      No way would she make something so hideous. But her hand had put the image on the paper. No one else’s. It was as if a compulsion had made her do it. How? Why was this happening to her?

      Her fingers gripped the charcoal stem so tightly it broke in her hand and crumbled to the table. The pieces pinged loudly in her studio. She looked at the bird clock on the wall—3:00 a.m. Where were all the animals? She owned three cats and a dog. They were probably still nestled all snug in her bed. So why wasn’t she?

      Darkness covered the windows in her studio. She glimpsed her own reflection staring back at her: a terrified woman, hollowed eyes from lack of sleep, dread gripping her face.

      She noticed her hands, covered in black charcoal dust. She didn’t even remember getting out of bed, entering her studio, sitting down at her easel. Oh, God!

      Her gaze raced back to the picture. Darkness, a sliver of the moon showing in the sky. Barren trees silhouetted in dim moonlight. And below the trees a white clapboard cottage. A circular drive curved around the front yard, outlining a defoliated and wintering flower garden. A large addition jutted from the side of the cottage. North-facing windows ran floor to ceiling.

      Her studio. She had drawn her own cottage.

      And standing just outside the windows…a ghoul. It held itself upright like a man, yet the shoulders hunched from lack of flesh on the chest or body. All skeletal. Blustery white hair flowed down to its shoulders. The face was a hollow, gaunt skull with glowing red eyes. The jaw jutted out, exposing large animal fangs. And it had long fingernails…

      Screeeech!

      Summer jumped. Her gaze darted to the windows.

      Screeeeeeeeech! The scraping traveled the length of the windowpane now. It sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard.

      Summer looked into searing eyes. The ones from her picture. She screamed and then she fainted.

      Reese McMurray yawned and drove along the winding path of Living Spring Road. The headlights of his cruiser cut through the thick darkness. As the sheriff, he rarely found himself working the graveyard shift—his deputies rotated that duty. He didn’t much like it tonight, but reports of a strange creature spotted along the eight-mile road drew him there. The callers had been skeptical themselves about what they had seen. Mrs. Jenkins said it was a deformed bear. Harley James swore it was bigfoot. But all the callers agreed it made their flesh crawl. Tonight he was off the clock, hunting his own private hunch about what was loose in his county.

      He eased the cruiser around the sharp corners in the road, his gaze scanning every shadow. He passed the open pastures of the Bracket farm, a two-hundred-acre cattle ranch. He shined the spotlight on the dash out into the fields.

      A few deer grazing. Nothing out of the ordinary.

      He drove on and reached the Carter property—Summerset. After old Mr. and Mrs. Carter died, the Carter farm fell into disrepair. Their son still owned the property, but he was some big-shot songwriter in Hollywood and he’d let the house and grounds fall apart. Reese frowned. If the guy didn’t care about the place, he should sell it.

      The driveway was half a mile long and you couldn’t see the old plantation mansion clearly from the road for the overgrown oaks along the drive, but it was hard to miss the flaking paint on the gutters, the shutters that were falling off and the unkempt gardens. It had a desolate look about it that undoubtedly enhanced its haunted reputation.

      Some of the five hundred acres were still farmed and remnants of the fall soybean crop sat wintering and frozen in the fields. Reese felt a tinge of regret. He had always wanted a large farm like the Carters’, but he had grown up on six acres, living in a small rancher. Like his grandfather, Reese’s father had been sheriff of King Charles County. A public servant’s salary didn’t allow for much, other than surviving and setting aside a little retirement. Certainly, the McMurrays could never rise to become privileged landowners like the Carters. Reese didn’t mind his station in life, but it had never stopped him from dreaming about being a landed gentleman. Maybe in his next life.

      If he were honest with himself, he was no farmer. Never had been. All he really wanted was to remain the sheriff, maybe get married and have kids and, eventually, after putting in thirty years, retire. Something his father had wanted, but he had never lived to see to fruition.

      His stomach knotted as it always did when he thought of his father. Then he cleared the end of the Carter property line and reached a cottage, Summer White-Cloud’s home. Thoughts of his father’s murder shifted into bitter contractions that twisted his gut into knots. Just being near Summer White-Cloud’s house turned him inside out and he hated it.

      When her paintings began showing in New York galleries, she had moved from the Patomani Reservation not five miles from here and bought the little cottage from the Carters and added a studio. There were rumors Summer was a witch, a title bestowed on most of the Patomani women. In Summer’s case it was befitting.

      He had never believed in the supernatural—until his father’s disappearance. He didn’t have tangible proof that Summer was a full-fledged witch, but he knew she conjured evil. And that evil had destroyed his father.

      It was tragic Reese hadn’t seen it before he dated her in high school. He could thank Takala Rainwater for that. Takala and her sisters, Fala and Nina, had seemed normal at school, so he’d befriended them. Yet Takala possessed strength that boggled the mind. He had never been able to best her at arm wrestling. He’d lost a fortune betting against her. He even had a crush on her at one time,

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